


Obsidian Pursuit

by paxnirvana



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Death Knight sex, Dragon sex, F/M, Interspecies Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-01
Updated: 2011-05-01
Packaged: 2017-10-18 20:27:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/192958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paxnirvana/pseuds/paxnirvana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>orc/dragon, f/m, OC/NPC</p><p>Wrath of the Lich King timeline.</p><p>-- Based off the Obsidian Dragonshrine quest chain in Dragonblight. --</p><p>Warnings: blood, violence, Death Knight sex, interspecies sex</p>
            </blockquote>





	Obsidian Pursuit

The shrine entrance was a cave carved in the shape of a gaping dragon maw, the throat glowing red with the seething light of the sluggishly flowing lava streams that lay within. It was an odd thing to find here, in this land of perpetual ice -- fire. But the earth lived on despite the Lich King’s will. Lava, its thick blood, welled where it would. Or where it was called.

Rekka entered the cave cautiously; blood and ichor from enemies slain in the valley before the shrine still dripping from the blade of her massive axe. The flaming skeletons that had attacked her had hardly been worthy of notice. That the human necromancers in their dark robes begged for mercy even as they fought to their own deaths her bothered her not.

She’d seen and done far worse than to slay a few cowardly fools during her servitude to the Lich King. Though those days were thankfully behind her, the debt she owed for her freedom still needed to be paid.

When Tirion Fordring, leader of the Argent Crusade finally called, the Knights of the Ebon Blade would answer. So they had all sworn on that bloody day, on that bloody field, in that sacred place. But first they would have to grow stronger; each and every one of them.

Until that day came – when the Crusade and the Knights would face and destroy the Lich King himself –, she followed her own path to strength. And while she did so, she worked to gain favor with the Horde too. To try to regain something of her standing with the people who still glanced askance at her when she stayed in their towns.

Yet is seemed no matter how many unpleasant tasks she undertook, no matter how many foes she vanquished for them, still they mistrusted her. For she was a Death Knight.

Here in Dragonblight these last few weeks, she had been working for the dragon flights instead of her own people. The difference had been immediately obvious. No sidelong looks. No hesitation. No whispers swiftly silenced. There was just simple acceptance.

The Blue Flight, and its mad Aspect, waged open war on the other flights, and on any mortal race that used magic. Distracted by this conflict, the flights welcomed mortal assistance with lesser, but still vital, matters. But for this assistance the flights were reluctant to pull in the two great Factions themselves, given the ever-present threat of the Lich King. And so daring adventurers, willing to take on the dangerous tasks few others could, flocked to Wyrmrest Temple to answer the call to battle that the great Factions dared not.

But still, once she had earned the right to venture to the top of the Temple itself, she saw that few adventurers willingly approached one dark-haired human-looking woman there.

Nalice was her name, Rekka had swiftly learned. Ambassador of the Black Dragonflight. Deathwing’s own. In her mortal form, the black dragon’s dark eyes burned with hatred for the others around her. Though she held to the peace that Alexstraza the Life-Binder enforced, the looks she cast toward the Red Dragon Queen boded ill for the moment the battles with the Blue Flight and the Lich King ended, Rekka thought.

She had approached the Ambassador despite that threat. Welcoming that open, honest hatred in place of the veiled contempt, the constant subtle withdrawals she endured from her own people.

She had been a fierce warrior before her death. A Kor’kron Elite. Proud of her status and fame even within that privileged few. But she had fallen when the Lich King's forces attacked Orgrimmar. She had fallen protecting her Warchief and the High Overlord himself. It had been an honorable death. One that should have assured her an honorable place among the spirits of her ancestors. And yet… here she was.

Cold. Dark. Cursed with undeath. Marked by runes. Her body still walking the land. Her soul denied the honor and peace it had earned. For that abomination alone, Arthas would pay.

How her body and her soul had fallen into the Lich King’s hands, she did not know. She only knew that she had awakened weeks later in Acherus feeling the weight of his icy, implacable hold on her soul. With her will bent to the Lich King's, her body re-shaped, her spirit frozen.

Until the battle at Light’s Hope Chapel. Until the human paladin Tirion Fordring drove off the Lich King and freed Darion Mograine, and so freed them all. The paladin had even begged pardon for them all from their former leaders. Pardons that he had told them they would have to carry back to their people themselves.

Nothing had prepared her for the ultimate agony that had been appearing before her Warchief again. The pain and regret in Thrall’s eyes when he recognized her standing before him among the contingent of other Horde Death Knights freed by Lord Fordring had been far greater a horror and shame than anything the Lich King had subjected her to.

Once granted the Warchief's amnesty, she had left Orgrimmar as soon as she could. Had honed the terrible new skills thrust upon her by the Lord of the Undead in battle at every chance and had earned her way to Northrend doing the unpleasant tasks others shunned.

But the wary eyes of her people still pained her.

She left the living behind whenever possible. The Black Dragonflight’s Ambassador had sought someone to come to this shrine to find another black dragon and offer him her assistance. One by the name of Serinar. Though why those of the Black Flight pretended they needed mortal help, she had no idea. But the task offered had been distant and dangerous – and promised to pay well – and so she had taken it on.

So now she found herself in this fiery cavern battling human necromancers and their risen minions. They were servants of the Lich King still, which made the battle that much sweeter to her, destroying willing cogs in his machine of death.

“This wasn’t how I was supposed to die!” the human man in red-black robes cried as his spells failed against her runic resistance. He threw up his hands in a futile attempt to block her swiftly-descending axe. She severed his throat and one hand with the blow, the bright blood spraying high against the dark rock walls of the tunnel beside her.

The body fell to the floor with a hard thud; twitched there into death. “Fool, as if that matters,” she said bitterly, and spat on it.

“Well, aren’t you an interesting little dead thing,” a deep voice said from the mouth of a nearby alcove. The sullen glow of lava reflected off the far wall, leaving the nearer in deep shadow. She peered into those shadows suspiciously, axe held at the ready in both hands.

“Who goes there?” she demanded. Dark laughter made her jerk her chin up higher. The man who stepped out of the shadows _looked_ human, but she did not mistake him for so. He was larger than most humans, not only taller, but just larger than a human should be. Taller than she was, forcing her to look up to where long black hair fell around a dark, bearded face. But the eyes that caught and held her gaze were a startling light gray and filled with both power and contempt.

“One of Arthas’ are you?” the man said as he walked out of the shadows and into the light. His robes were long and heavy with both magic and embroidery, dark and rich and ornate. “Come to punish these fools for failing him?”

The man’s mocking gaze froze her in place. Her great-axe and plate armor, she was sure, would do her no good against this one. Neither would the dark diseases or other foul skills the lords of Acherus had drilled into her. She had not enough strength to face him in battle, she sensed at once. Not now. Not yet. Perhaps never.

His mouth turned up in a sardonic smile at her grim silence and he laughed. “Ah. No. There’s still a spark of spirit in those cold-flame eyes. So I don’t think so. An escapee, are you?”

“I am free of him,” she said, the harsh rasp of her own voice almost annoying to her ears after the rich, resonant depth of his. “The Warchief has decreed that I and my brethren are free Death Knights of the Horde.”

“Is that so? How daring of him,” the man said, moving slowly closer as his gaze roamed over her blatantly. She held her ground despite the sudden unease that gripped her. He was hunting her. All her instincts told her so. They urged her to run. Fast and far. But she forced herself to stay still. To run would just mean her instant destruction. “Hm. An orc woman too. Interesting.”

He moved suddenly, one bare hand knocking her axe aside with shocking strength, the other rising to catch her throat. He drove her back against the blood-streaked stone of the cavern wall, pinning her there as he stared down into her eyes through her helm. His hand, she was shocked to note, radiated a heat that she could actually feel even with her deadened nerves. She shuddered in his grasp as her cold flesh greedily absorbed that heat. Tingled with it. Seemed almost to come alive.

“You are Serinar,” she managed to say, her free hand fisted at her side inside her gauntlet while her skin heated beneath his hold.

“Oh, so Nalice must have sent you,” he said, looking down at her, his expression clearly disappointed now though his eyes still gleamed with hunger. “I guess I shouldn’t play with you then, should I, interesting little dead thing.”

She shifted under his grip but didn’t struggle. Killer though she was, she knew a greater one when she saw it. This black dragon was still toying with her.

“I'm trying to decide at which I'm more surprised... that you actually came to the aid of a black dragon or that you're still in one piece after speaking with Nalice. Her words drip venom, but I suppose Wrymrest can keep even our kind in check sometimes.” He laughed, his hand flexing tight then relaxing its grip on her throat until the hold was almost gentle. She swallowed carefully, made uneasy by the uncanny heat of his skin against hers. He was still looking down at her, dark hair fallen around his face as he continued his thought; his mind clearly not on his words but on her instead. “Or perhaps it's just the armies of the red dragonflight massed around her.”

He lifted his other hand then. Pulled her helm from her head and threw it on the floor. Stared into her face hungrily, a sharp smile on his lips.

“You weren’t bad looking… for an orc. And it hardly matters to me if you’re dead. Shall I put you down on this blood-soaked floor and have my way with you in this borrowed shape of mine, little orc woman?”

“I was sent here to aid you in defending your Shrine, lord dragon.” She showed her fangs to him in a silent snarl. “And that is all.”

His cruel smile only deepened, the eager glitter in his eyes growing stronger. He leaned closer again, until his hair brushed her face and his breath was like a wash of uncanny heat over her cheek, her chin, making that skin tingle and heat like the skin of her throat too.

“I can smell it,” he said, his voice low, his gaze veiled. “The flicker of life that still lingers within you. It has to, you know. For you to move, to walk about, to exist. The Plague of Undead is not true Death, but instead the ultimate perversion of Life itself. A mockery of it; for you must feed and consume to continue even this wretched existence you now have. And yet you cannot breed. You only continue by spreading this plague to others – without contributing anything at all to the life of this world; only taking from it. And oh that’s such a delicious irony to us, and such an exquisitely painful blow to those hypocritical Reds.”

She flinched inside at his ugly words, his scornful laughter, but outwardly held herself still, her gaze as flat and cold and impassive as she could make it. “I’m here to protect your Shrine from the Scourge. Nothing more.”

“As you say,” he said, tilting his head slightly. Watching her intently from half-lidded eyes until she began to wonder if he was going to rip her throat out... or kiss her. “Well, I’m rather fond of wanton bloodshed too and you look to be a well-honed tool for that, woman.” He stepped back from her at last, releasing his hold on her throat.

Almost immediately he turned his back on her and strode away. As if he didn’t consider her a danger at all. The humiliation of that dismissal – more than his taunting her with a possible rape of her body that would mean less than nothing to her after what the Lich King had already done to her soul – stung her into stepping away from the wall, her axe starting to rise. She stopped herself from doing something irretrievably stupid by bending down to pick her helm up from the floor where he had dropped it instead.

“I've played my part in destroying entire civilizations,” he was saying as he paced back toward the alcove where she had first spotted him, “to have to lower myself to dealing with this wretched Cult of the Damned disgusts me.”

She followed him into the alcove, only to find that it was actually a narrow passageway that led to a shelf of stone which projected over a wider cavern. A thick, sluggish pool of lava lay below. The sullen light from that molten stone lit the chamber more than enough for her to see the dragon stop at the edge and look down. She hung back, wary of his intentions. Her un-life might mean nothing to him, —or to many others—, but there were things she needed to see through before she let herself die again. Which could not be until the Lich King himself was destroyed; only then could her death be honorable and true, with no fear of being called back again as his slave.

Serinar turned at the lip and gestured at the far wall of the cavern beyond. “They're drawing power from the bones of my dead brothers,” he said and she saw that the walls were indeed studded with the huge bones of dragons. Much like the Wastes outside, where other Scourge labored to excavate them as well, hoping to harness the ancient power that slumbered within for the Lich King.

This cavern was clearly where many of the Black Flight had once come to die. Ages and ages ago, from the depths at which they were buried. Perhaps even before their corruption, she wondered. The dragon continued to speak, his voice even, controlled, though his expression was dark and angry. “I have no love for the cult, but I'm baffled by their audacity. There will be no mercy shown for them no matter how they beg... not that I would have granted it anyway.”

He laughed and turned back to face her, pale eyes gleaming in that shadowed face.

“We will spare no one,” he said, watching her closely. “We will begin outside. There lowly necrolytes and their skeletal servants shame my land with their presence. Ensure that they have no place to flee when the slaughter starts. I will give you a destructive ward to place at the end of the path leading out of the shrine. Defend it until it is fully charged.

Then we will kill them all.”

“My axe is ready,” she said. “Show me your enemies and I will slay them.”

He watched her closely, the smile on his face more hunger than amusement. “I knew there was something I liked about you when I first saw you, woman – it must have been the fresh blood on your hands.”

She frowned. Too long enduring her people’s side-long looks of unease had made her more aware of subtle mockeries. He mocked her now. “Hope you to shock me, lord dragon?” she said. “I am no puling human ridden by doubt. These who choose willingly to serve _him_ in life forfeit any right to honorable mercy – they deserve only destruction.” She lifted her lips away from her tusks and fangs in a battle-snarl.

The smile he gave her then was honest and hot and eager, his eyes gleaming. “Ah, your race is so refreshingly blood-thirsty. I had forgotten.” He reached into his robes and withdrew a fist-sized pulsing purple-black crystal. Even from a yard away she could feel the malign energy of it.

He held it toward her, watching her closely. She stared at the crystal, uneasy. Its dark energy was daunting even to her. She didn’t want to touch it, but knew she had to. He was testing her bold words. She moved a few steps closer to him, her gaze fixed on the stone, and lifted it from his hand. Even through the heavy leather palm of her gauntlet the crystal burned her half-numb flesh with a fierce stinging power.

“It will flare when you reach the proper distance; make certain to place it in the center of the path. The mindless ones will be drawn to the power of it like moths to flame. Until it has attuned itself to the flow of energy from the shrine it will be vulnerable; defend it until it is ready.”

She closed her hand over the crystal and nodded once, distracted, her arm already throbbing painfully from its dire power.

“Go then, woman,” he said, waving her toward the passageway behind her. She turned and walked stiffly away. Once out of his sight around the corner Rekka broke into a jog, then a run, all but racing out the cavern mouth, eager to reach the far side of the shrine and rid herself of the terrible thing she held.

She had killed a few cultists and their risen minions on the way in, so the path should still be clear for her return. Unless one of them had been a patrol expected to report in who had been missed and set them on alert. But the ache of the dark magic object in her hand distracted her from even that minor concern.

The sun had fallen behind the Wintergrasp Mountains above the Shrine while she was within speaking with the dragon. She pushed on swiftly through the darkening night despite the risk of patrols, intent on her goal. But the nights of Northrend were never completely dark. The sun seemed to linger just behind the furthest reaches of the mountains, as if afraid to leave these troubled lands unwatched. Yet still the stars shown down from the blue-black heavens with piercing brightness too. It was a strange, unsettling sky. Even to her.

It took nearly half an hour to reach the far side of the valley, traversing the cracked and broken road. To her relief, as he had promised, the crystal did send out a dark pulse as she reached the end of the paving. She gladly dropped it in the center of the ancient path. Before it touched the ground it sprouted a glowing green magical support that anchored it in the air above the ground. Stepping back toward the distant cavern shrine, she scrubbed her palm down her metal-clad thigh, as if that could remove the lingering ache of its power from her flesh, before she gripped her wicked two-handed axe firmly in both hands again.

Magic coalesced in the air around the purple stone. Arced toward it. Pulsing waves of black and red and purple swirled around it and vanished within, making it glow slowly brighter. And in the sudden still silence, she heard the clattering of bone feet as enemies approached.

Her focus narrowed to battle then. Spin and dodge. Slash and smash. Bone shards and ichor and bits of rotten flesh flew. They came singly at first, then in pairs, finally as small groups. She destroyed them all, waiting for some clue as to when the ward behind her would complete its attunement.

Still the waves of enemies continued. Until even she was flagging; her strength was great, but not endless. With yet two more bone constructs clawing at her, even her endurance was beginning to wane under the nearly continual assault. As she parried a strike from one, smashing its rotten skull to bits on her return stroke, she gasped for breath as three more Scourge charged toward her and the Ward.

But then they all vanished into ash as a violent pulse of purple-black magic washed over her from behind. Leaving her untouched. The dragon's Ward was finally complete.

Almost instantly a deafening roar broke over the valley, loud and stunning. Alarmed she scanned the sky, wondering if one of the Bone Wyrms had been attracted by the Ward as well. But she could spot nothing approaching from the Wastes below. Instead, from behind, against the bright star-shot sky toward the Shrine she saw a huge, solid black shape stooped low, approaching swiftly across the valley. Serinar, in his true form. Huge and terrible. With flame and claw and fang flashing. Driving what looked in the dragonfire-lit night to be perhaps more than two dozen cultists and their minions before him as he came.

Eyes wide, axe in hand, she scrambled toward the edge of the valley out of their direct path. She took up position with rocks at her back to hopefully afford her some defense against the onslaught of so many.

But she need not have worried. The cultists were so terrified of the dragon – screaming and begging for mercy the while – that most of them ran straight into the ward and died engulfed in the hungry magical purple flame that soon turned even their bones to ash. The few who shied away from the fate of their fellows the dragon destroyed himself.

He circled the rock-jumbled valley for a while then, scouring it from above for sight of any braver fools planning a last-ditch defense or cowards attempting to hide. He stooped above a small camp, his flame falling upon the tents first, before he landed to dispatch any who managed to avoid it. Death-screams filled the air, nearly drowned out by his triumphant roars. Then he took to the air again. She followed behind him on foot, weary and aching, and slew those cowardly few who emerged from their hiding places to try escape after the dragon’s shadow had passed. But it took until deep into the night for him to be satisfied that all servants of the Cult in the outside camps were dead or destroyed.

She collapsed to her knees at the mouth of the main cavern, weary and exhausted and bloodied. He landed on the broken path beyond, his vast wings throwing clouds of dust and ash into the air making her cough. The great head turned toward her, fangs bared in a wide mouth that appeared to grin with satisfaction. A short dark beard adorned his dragon’s chin, much like in his human form. His eyes were bright pools of intensity, piercing her with his gaze. Then in an instant he had transformed himself into his human guise again, laughing loudly.

“Well done, orc-woman, they have nowhere to run now,” he said, striding up to where she sat. He grinned down at her for a moment, obviously pleased with the destruction they had wrought, before reaching down to haul her to her feet. She staggered and fell against him and he put one arm around her, holding her close despite the gore that covered her armor. Far closer than she cared for.

His eyes gleamed. “This night’s fine work has earned you a few hours rest before we purge the rest of the vermin. Come.” Then he transformed again and she was held in his claws, being lifted up into the air as he flew toward the mountains behind the shrine.

Dizzy with the height and her exhaustion, it took her a frantic moment before she noticed the small (for his dragon-bulk) cave with a ledge that he was flying toward was not a blank cliff face after all. He landed there with deft skill and set her down, transforming again into human form with his arms still clamped around her. She stared up at him in resignation, her weary body as stiff as she could make it, her axe pinned down at her side by his hold.

“You will have me regardless of my intent, is that so, lord dragon?” she said bitterly. He laughed again, throwing his head back and tightening his hold on her as his too-white teeth flashed in the starlight.

“If all I wanted was your body, mortal, I would have had it already. No, I have afforded you a singular courtesy by bringing you here to my wyer, woman, simply due to the delightfully efficient way you slay my enemies. Try not to scream and whimper too much over the honor.” Then he released her and strode off, a hard hand on her arm pulling her along behind him into the mouth of the small cave.

Dark, at first, and narrow was the cave. She wondered if his dragon’s form could even enter here or if he had to transform to reach it. Luminous mosses grew one the walls near the floor, marking a dim path. It soon opened out into a much larger space that was lined with soft sand that had been hollowed out by a large form. It was obvious that he could fit in here as a dragon. Beyond the hollow, within a doorway cut into the stone wall stood an oak door.

He led her to that door, opening it to reveal a far smaller room beyond that could have been in the finest of manor houses rather than cut into the side of a cliff. It was filled with rich furnishings, chairs and tables and bookshelves. A huge hearth held a fire that crackled to life at a snap of his fingers. Lush rugs covered the smooth stone floor. Ornate tapestries and framed paintings hung on the walls. Gold and gem-encrusted objects – jewelry, weapons, and statues – littered the shelves. Thick, exotic furs lay draped over several upholstered chairs and long couches.

The room was truly a dragon’s cache of treasure.

He looked down at her and smiled wryly. “As much as blood usually delights me, it does stain the rugs quite dreadfully, so I will have to insist you strip out of that armor, woman, before you can enter.”

He released her arm to stride across that opulent room to another door, leaving her swaying on her feet there in the first doorway in confusion. He opened the second door and snapped out an order to the darkness beyond in a language she didn’t know.

From the door behind him soon emerged a small female black-scaled dragonkin. Obviously a servant and not one of the mages she was more used to battling, the creature bowed low to Serinar and shuffled into the room.

“Feed it and see that it is clean before it sleeps,” Serinar said to the creature with a sneer, waving his hand at Rekka carelessly. “I will be in the reliquary.” Then he disappeared into the hallway the servant had emerged from.

Rekka – too weary to protest further when it didn’t seem as if Serinar’s offer was less than honest – let the dragonkin help her out of her armor. It set it all out in the sandy lair beyond on an armor stand that had appeared apparently just for that purpose. Only when she was down to her leather pants and padded linen shirt did it gesture her into the room beyond.

It brought her warm water to wash with; soap and a small brush to scrub the blood from beneath her nails too. And a towel to dry herself. A meal of meat and cheese, tubers and bread, water and ale waited for her at a fine table when she was done. She sat in one of the heavily carved chairs, ate what little she knew her undead form demanded to help her recover her strength, then staggered over to one of the wide couches. Falling onto the soft surface gratefully, she barely managed to draw a fur across her aching body before she fell into exhausted sleep.

~*~

She woke to an odd sensation of tingling heat all down her back and over her arms and legs. She opened her eyes to dim firelight, instantly wary.

“There are other couches to pick from on which to take your rest, lord dragon,” she said quietly into the silence.

“Hm, I disagree,” he said, drawing her back against himself more firmly, his arms heavy over hers, pinning them securely. “This one suits me best.” She could feel the rigid length of him against her buttocks, pressing firm and tingling hot against her far-too-cool flesh. He had stripped her already. There must have been something to make her sleep soundly in the food. Or the ale. A spell cast on her by the servant. She would not have been caught so unaware otherwise, she swore to herself.

He bent and put his mouth against the back of her neck. His lips were soft, his beard rough. The contrast made her prickle with sensation. Her eyes went wider, her breath catching in her throat as she stared blindly into the shadows of the room beyond, something that might be panic welling within her. She had not been touched like this since her undeath. Had not even considered such might happen. Mating was pointless. Her flesh was a tool of war alone now; numb and relentless and without the capacity to bring life. It had seemed somehow dishonorable to think of sporting like this. The joys of the living were no longer to be hers.

“I am dead,” she said, a rasp to her voice that was nothing of Acherus. His hand moved over her without hesitation, sliding down arm to waist to hip with clear intent.

“Are you?” he murmured against the taper of her ear. Her body quivered. “You seem quite alive to me. Perhaps your definition of life and mine differ in some vital way, mortal.” His breath was hot, distracting. He had taken down the tie holding back the lone tail of hair she allowed herself on her shaved head, letting it spill over her shoulder unrestrained. The coarse strands tickled the bare upper curves of her breasts, distracting her.

“I will feel nothing,” she lied, disturbed by the strange heat his touch built in her.

“A lie. You will feel; you just wish not.” Then he laughed against the hollow behind her ear, his breath so hot against her skin, his short beard rough and rasping. “And I don’t remember offering to please you in the first place, woman… only myself.” She shivered at his tone, rich and deep and implacable.

“Get it over with then,” she said, closing her eyes and holding herself still.

“In my own time,” he murmured, stroking down her body now. His hands left trails of heat across her ribs, her belly, her thighs. He shifted his legs against hers, parting them from behind, sliding his knee between her legs and lifting hers up, exposing her. His fingers slid down between immediately and found her open but cold and dry.

He rubbed his fingers over her, tracing the folds and lines, curves and rises of her sex for what seemed like forever. The flesh was soft, but unresponsive, her opening parched. Still he seemed content to simply bring his heat into her there between her legs. Tracing her carefully, exploring her from front to back and front again. Stroking her thighs, her belly as well. Making skin tingle, flesh ache. And slowly, so slowly building an urge to shift and move in her that she had to work ever harder to suppress. Holding herself as still and stiff as she could against his touch, his warmth, his hot breath against her throat.

Until he finally pushed a heated finger within her and to her shock she realized she had somehow become damp.

“No!” she cried out, tensing against him, before biting at her lower lip to silence herself, schooling herself to stillness again. But it was too late. His low, pleased chuckle sounded in her ear. And his finger slid through the slick evidence eagerly.

“Ah, as I thought,” he murmured against her shoulder, biting at it gently in a way that made her throat ache, her breasts begin to throb and peak slowly. “Not dead at all, only dormant.”

Then she was trying to arch away from him, her hands gripping his wrists and trying to move them away from her core. But he was relentless and far too strong; she could not escape his touch. He pressed her back against him and rocked his hips against hers.

“Will you fight to the end?” he said, his lips gliding down to her shoulder.

The sound she made then was raw. Desperate.

He rolled her beneath him on the couch, onto her belly, spreading her legs wide with his knees and pinning her hands above her shoulders with his own, their fingers intertwined. And for a moment her heart raced in her chest, her breath caught in heady, blind anticipation as he arched himself above her, stroking his length down the crack of her ass. Hot and sleek and ridged, he slid against her, pressing her body into the couch while bending his head down to press his mouth behind her ear.

“In the hell of Acherus, you learned to wield pain and suffering as if they were blades. To master them by suppressing everything that you felt; I will break down that barrier in you and you will feel again, little orc Death Knight. You will feel everything again and I will see you ache with every breath you take, every throb of your heart and only _I_ will be able to slake your agony of need.”

At that hated name, her dazed mind recalled the training that would freeze her blood, still her flesh. Make herself inviolate.

She touched the Runes of Frost graven on her belly and the fortitude of ice slid over her at the demand of her will, chilling all heat out of her. She stopped moving, stopped resisting. Felt his hands on her without any response at all. His body became a weight alone. His heat unable to thaw the chill no matter how hard he worked at her. Until he snarled in frustration and finally rolled away from her in disgust.

“That I cannot allow, lord dragon,” she said flatly, releasing Frost’s hold on herself to sit up, to watch him, her heart cold and empty as she stared at that handsome face now twisted with anger. “I must remain strong until the one who made me this way is cast down and destroyed.”

She met his gaze boldly. Defiantly. Saw the frustration fade quickly to cunning contemplation. That look prompted more words from her lips. Rash ones. “Once he is no more, I will find you again and give myself to you to play with as you see fit. But until that day comes, Lord Black Dragon, I must stay as I am.”

His smile was dark and cruel as he shook his head. “Ah, but then there is no challenge, little orc. There would be no risk, no dire penalty for losing.” He leaned closer to her, tilting his head toward hers. “You were wrong to challenge me so, woman. It only makes me more determined.”

He loomed over her, his heat reaching out to her again. And she braced herself, gathering the tattered shreds of her will about her to resist his touch, because she could not freeze herself so thoroughly again so soon. The runes needed time to recharge.

He slid a hand around the back of her neck, beneath the fall of her unbound tail of hair. Drew her closer to him until her breasts flattened against his broad chest. She let her hands fall to the couch, not touching him. She would not hold him. She would not aid him, she vowed fiercely. This… temptation… was just another kind of battle for her soul.

His eyes glittered with dark mirth as they met her wary gaze. “In this very guise I have walked among humans for centuries, disrupting their petty plans and allegiances to my great delight,” he said, his voice low, rich and beguiling. “Their women take little effort to conquer this way; their men only slightly more. Recently they have begun to bore me. But now, the stubborn resistance of one little orcish Death Knight who boldly delivered herself into my grasp intrigues me. How amusing.”

He kissed her then, his mouth hot and open on hers. His lips were hard. Punishing. His tongue pierced her mouth, filling it with a flood of consuming heat. His beard felt rough against her skin, another sensation to distract her when none should. He lapped at her tusks, nipped at her lips. All the while the heat of his body against hers, his arm across her back, his hand on her neck sank deeper into her flesh, making it prickle and ache.

She wanted to push away, but knew it would only encourage him. Yet her stillness also encouraged him. What he craved most, she surmised, was reaction. Any reaction. So she was trapped either way, but to stay in his hold – to accept the heat he offered – only risked hastening her own downfall.

She wrenched her mouth away from his finally, alarmed to find she was panting for breath, her lips warm and softened from his caresses, her body leaning against his. She tried to pull back, to stiffen her body again. To resist. But his eyes gleamed in triumph as his other hand rose to her back pressing her closer. The grip on her neck tightened preventing her escape. His arms surrounded her, trapping her, while his hardness pressed against her hip, hot and ready. A promise of destruction.

“Will you fight this every step of the way?” he said against her cheek. Where even the scrape of his beard made her body weak. He would have her flat again…if she did not…

“I will,” she said sharply, lifting her hands to press against his chest, straining to put distance between them. But his arms were like felsteel bands, immovable.

“Good,” he said and released her. She fell back against the cushioned arm of the couch in surprise, panting from her efforts to escape, her wary gaze fixed on him as she waited for him to reach for her again. To start his attempts at conquest again. But he just rose to his feet and stood before her for a long moment staring down at her, dark and dangerous in his rampant nakedness, before he turned away. With a careless gesture he was clothed again in his rich robes. Another and the fire in the hearth flared high again. Brightening the room.

“It is time we were about our business, little Death Knight.” With both hands he brushed back the long hair from his face. She watched him warily. Expecting deceit.

He looked back over his shoulder at her, his amused gaze raking her naked body from toe to crown. “Go and ready yourself for slaughter, woman. There are more cultists to slay this morn.”

~*~

Serinar carried her down to the valley before the Shrine held in the cradle of his dragon’s claws again. The icy wind of the flight drove the last of his lingering heat from her flesh. Returning her flesh once more to her own command alone. She drew strength from the axe that lay against her back, the icy plate mail that protected her.

He landed near the ward she had placed at the valley exit yesterday. The twisted and seared bodies of several Cultists lay near the glowing stone. Obviously they had tried to leave. It was just proof, she thought darkly, that the humans who served Arthas were cowards and that Serinar’s dragon-magic was strong.

“The Cult of the Damned has not come just to extract power from dead dragons. I suspect I know what they are up to, but I want you to prove me correct,” he said after he had transformed back into his human form again.

She nodded and took the lead, traveling the same path as the day before back to the Shrine. But aware with every step she took of the dragon-man behind her. It was an uneasy and silent walk. They encountered no resistance. No attack. The Cultists had not resumed their work on the dragon bones that lay in the valley itself, it seemed.

A watcher lurked in the shadows of the cave mouth; Rekka had spotted the human woman from some distance away and shifted her path into to the jumble of broken stones and fire-blackened trees off the main road as cover. She had turned to the dragon, lifted a brow in inquiry, but he only shook his head and followed her in silence. A small, dark smile on his face.

“Kill that one for me, Death Knight,” he said, leaning against a still-smoking tree stump with deliberate ease.

She nodded to him once and picked her way through the rocks and charred debris until all cover was exhausted. Even then the human did not truly stand a chance. Rekka was on her in an instant, moving swiftly despite the heavy plate armor that covered her, her great-axe as eager as she for the spray of blood.

He stalked forward now and looked down at the body with a sneer. “I will grant you the guise of this dead necrolyte. Proceed to the back of the Shrine and confirm their intentions for being in this sacred place.”

He began to channel a spell, gaze fixed on her. “I will watch through your eyes.”

A burst of magic surrounded her. She felt no differently after, but when she looked down at her hands where they gripped her weapon they were no longer large and strong, but slim and weak and pale, like those of the human magic-user she had just slain. And her axe now looked like the human’s staff.

“Be cautious, my little orc,” he said, “Any damage done to you is likely to break the fragile illusion.”

“They will know I am not as I seem,” she said and was startled when the words came out in a much lighter, softer voice than her own. A _human_ voice.

“Will they?” His smile was smug, his gaze amused. “Go. As long as you don't go hacking and slashing your way through, they'll never know the difference.I tire of this pestilence infesting my domain.”

She turned then and made her way into the great stone maw of the cavern. The paths and tunnels were wide but rough, the larger caves lined with stalactites and stalagmites that looked like huge fangs. But they were only stone. Outside in the Wastes she had seen the great skulls of ancient wyrms with jaws far larger than the gates of Orgrimmar itself, some of them. So huge they dwarfed comprehension of how they had ever flown through the skies of Azeroth. But they had. Once. Long ago. Perhaps when the Titans themselves strode the land and shaped it with their very footsteps.

The tunnels she traversed were winding and many. Leading past sluggish streams of lava. Hot pools of bubbling mud. Sulfurous vents. Vast, echoing caverns. The Shrine was a hell of heat and fire and painful death. She felt little of the heat herself, though she began to wonder how the human cultists could bear it. She soon came across a patrol. The sweating man with a gibbering geist beside him ignored her passage other than giving her a cursory nod of his head.

Their security was lax. Their attention clearly focused elsewhere. Typical of servants of the Lich King, she knew. They leaned on his might too much. She gripped her axe – disguised by the spell as a staff – tightly to keep herself from slaying the man as he walked away from her toward the cave mouth.

“ _Geists_ ,” a soft, familiar voice said in her ears. She prevented herself from flinching only barely. It was Serinar’s voice. “ _How revolting. We will dispose of them soon enough. Press on, little Death Knight._ ”

She followed the tunnels deeper, led by the increasing presence of Cultists down the proper path. Coming eventually into a wider chamber where much larger smoldering bone constructs stood near odd, pulsing purple-red runes etched into various places on the stone floor. The constructs were only mindless guardians, primed for intruders and otherwise inert. But there were also far more necrolytes and their geist assistants working around the ancient dragon bones that protruded from the stone walls everywhere within these caves than there had been outside in the valley.

“ _It appears they are using those runes to deposit some of the power they've drained_ ,” Serinar’s presence said, his tone flat and furious. “ _They will pay for that hubris. Go deeper_.”

She walked past the laboring necrolytes, moving on through the caves until it finally opened up into a vast, arching cavern lined with slow-moving lava streams. If she had not been undead herself, she would have been sweating profusely, she knew. But she felt only the barest hint of what must be a stifling heat – nothing like what filled her when Serinar had touched her. She forced her thoughts away from that firmly. Not surprising, there were fewer live cultists at work here. Perhaps a dozen or so near the entrance only. But far more runes and bone construct guards littered the pathways.

“ _Go to the back of this chamber_ ,” Serinar whispered in her head, his tone grim now. “ _I must see_.”

She had reached the main cavern. Threads of slow-moving magma criss-crossed it, but there was an obvious path through now, one marked by ancient carvings. It led across stone arches and under frozen stone waves to the edge of a great bubbling pool of lava. Hot and red and angry.

At the edge of this pool there was a large, flat obsidian outcropping. Carved into the gleaming black surface were the forms of dragons. In flight. Mating. Feeding. In battle. Graceful and terrible and beautiful. Atop this stone, encased in a protective bubble of magics meant to shield him from the searing heat as well as any disruption, a lone robed necromancer worked. She stopped and simply watched at Serinar’s urging. Intense magical energies flowed from the necromancer into the pool. The once-man muttered and gestured firmly, obviously straining to call forth something from within the lava's depths.

Slowly, so slowly as she watched, horrified, a flaming dragon skeleton climbed out of the vast lava pool onto the rocks. It shook itself at the edge, shedding bubbling stone and fire as if they were merely water until only bare bone remained. Great teeth gleamed. The empty eye-sockets glowed with fel light. It spread its bony wings and took flight by the sheer power of its resurrected strength.

The necromancer lifted his claw-like hands high in triumph and capered on the edge of the lava pool as the dead dragon circled above him. “By my Master’s will, you are a black wyrm no longer! Go... go and serve the Scourge.”

There was a vicious snarl in her head; Serinar’s presence was enraged. “ _My brothers… I had hoped my suspicions were incorrect. Come back to me immediately, it is time to purge this place of the Cult_.”

Her journey back to him was as uneventful as her explorations had been, though his voice stayed silent in her head. She found she almost missed his comments. All the Cult members she passed were wholly focused on their dark work, as if they knew their time was limited. Power was torn from ancient bone and placed into shimmering runes. She didn’t have to wonder any more what it would be used for. The necromancer at the back of the cavern had been drawing on them freely.

When she reached Serinar he tore the illusion from her with a rake of his hands. Before she could react, he knocked her axe from her hands again. Eyes narrowed, he wrenched her helm from her head next, tossing it aside with a furious gesture. She stood still then, knowing her destruction was assured if she ran. He caught her shoulders in his hands and drove her back against the stone wall, caging her against it with his body. His pale eyes gleamed with fury as his mouth twisted in a snarl.

“We are the Black Dragonflight. We are no one’s _minions_ ,” he snapped, staring intently into her eyes. “We have rained destruction on the mortal lands of Azeroth for thousands of years. The decrepit Cult of the Damned worships death and we shall be glad to oblige.” Then he kissed her. Hot and fierce. And all the heat she had not felt in that terrible room full of lava filled her then, pouring into her through his ravaging mouth.

Only then did she struggle, wedging her hands against his chest, straining her legs. But he was immovable. Focused. So she called upon her icy fortitude again, freezing his heat from her once more.

He drew back from her at that, panting, his teeth bared in a frustrated snarl.

“I will break you yet, woman,” he said, eyes gleaming hungrily. “But I have work for you here first.”

He turned away from her, glaring out across this first cave full of slow-moving magma. Warily, she retrieved her helm and her axe, waiting to put her helm back on. Not knowing if covering her face would provoke him again so soon. He folded his hands behind his back, bending his head to stare down into the lava below for a time.

“We butchered them like cattle last night and still they remain. I cannot help but wonder whether they are naive enough to think that I will abide this or if they are simply suicidal,” he said finally, his voice calmer again. She waited, watching him. He turned to look at her, his gaze raking over her face, lips quirking, a brow rising. “And then there is you, little Death Knight. You stay and continue to serve me even though I threaten you at every turn. Why?”

She tensed, surprised that he even asked. So she chose her next words very carefully. “There is honor to be had here, lord dragon. And... the Cult’s plans must be stopped.”

“How noble,” he said, scorn clear. “Is that all? Are you certain, little orc woman?” The mocking lust and greed in his gaze was blatant as he looked her slowly up and down again.

She bared her fangs at him, letting a hint of her own buried anger show. “The Cult of the Damned serves _his_ goals. That is more than enough reason for me to long to destroy them.”

“Ah,” he said, his gaze softening some. “How lovely your puny rage is.”

She snarled openly, hands clenching on her axe and helm. “Your word-games tire me when there are enemies yet to kill, lord dragon.”

He threw back his head and laughed heartily. “Oh, you are delightful, little Death Knight. I must have you.”

“Enough,” she snapped, too annoyed to stay circumspect any longer. “The Cult still lingers here.”

“Very well,” he said, still chuckling, his gaze on her almost gentle now. “I will give you aim, little weapon. The path beyond was swarming with their atrocities. There is only one way to deal with such creatures... you know what to do.” He gestured toward the back of the cave at the twisting corridors. “And those runes. I will not have you toy with extracting the power they have stolen... often the most straight-forward solution is the most effective one.

Destroy the runes... stamp them out and ensure that the Cult will not have access to what they've accumulated there.”

“And the necromancer?” she asked. His gaze darkened again ominously.

“He will be dealt with soon enough. This Shrine will run thick with their blood first and their death-screams will begin the work of cleansing it of this desecration.”

He gestured and a long, slender sword appeared in his own hand. “Come, let us begin.”

She secured her helm on her head and followed him.

His advance was relentless. His hunt thorough. Everything that moved was destroyed. Geist. Cultist. Construct. All fell before their eager weapons. The humans screamed, ran. Begged for a mercy they denied them. Blood and ichor and bone flew. She killed and destroyed and killed at his side. Parry, dodge, strike. Over and over again. Dozens. A hundred. She lost count. Until she passed beyond exhaustion into a state of nearly mechanical precision that seemed unflagging.

But at every rune they encountered on the floor it was she who he guided to stamp on it, her boots smearing the sharp lines of the drawn runes until the ancient power they had trapped burst up around her in a shimmering dark flow, freed again. The power was warm. Thick. Heavy. Like nothing she'd ever sensed before; ancient dragon's magic. Yet he who was a dragon turned his back on it as she released it, his gaze cold, his expression stony.

Even in the human form he had adopted, he fought those who came in response to the runes’ destruction with a skill that awed her. It was nearly as destructive and powerful as his dragon one. His blade hewing through flesh and bone with equal ease. None stood before him for long. She had only to mop up those few who tried to flee before his wrath.

At last they came to the final great cavern where the necromancer lurked.

Serinar came to a halt at the entrance, his pale eyes gleaming fiercely, his sword caked with gore held before him. He turned that terrible gaze on her, taking in the blood that spattered her weapon and armor as well with approval.

Now that they had paused and the furor of battle had faded some, exhaustion swept over her. If she had been alive, she would not have lasted so long. But keeping pace with a dragon had taxed even her undead endurance. She gasped for breath now, leaning heavily on her great axe’s handle as she lifted her gaze to meet his. Knowing the risk she took even as she did so.

“Hearing their screams... watching the last life fade from their wretched bodies... it's invigorating, is it not?” He smiled toothily like the great predator he was. “I relish it.”

His gaze pierced hers. “As do you, I see.” He reached out with his free hand and ran his thumb over her panting mouth, rolling her lower lip open to press blood-stained fingers into her mouth. She sucked the blood from his fingers eagerly, her eyes closing at the rich, coppery taste and the feel of him before she could stop herself.

“Ah, you tempt me so, woman,” he breathed, moving closer. “I wonder what you were like in full life. Nothing quite so delightful I am sure.” The heat of him sank into her through his hand. Warming her where the great lava pools around them did nothing. She opened her eyes, staring up into his hungry gaze through her helm, her chest heaving with her urgent breaths beneath her plate armor. He slid his fingers from her mouth slowly, tracing her lip, a tusk as he did so before letting his hand fall to his side again.

“With their ranks thinned and much of their power stripped, it's time to strike at the source of the corruption,” he said, still staring down at her. She felt the sudden urge to touch him then. To see if his flesh would warm her so readily if she did. But she did not. Dared not let herself. Instead she waited for him to continue to speak, gathering her strength while firmly reining in her own straying thoughts.

“That creature is resurrecting black dragons as magmawyrms. Intolerable.” He lifted his head, glaring toward the back of the cavern. “You will go there and cleanse the remaining bones.”

He reached into his robes and drew out an object wrapped tightly in rune-marked silk. With a few careful shakes, the silk fell away to reveal a tiny sealed crystal vial. It gleamed darkly with a dim magical light, ominous and powerful, and even he seemed to handle it with care.

“This will ensure that the bones of my kin are never toyed with again. It holds Neltharion’s own Flame.”

She frowned at the way he said that name – almost reverently – and was puzzled that he used the ancient name for the Aspect of his Flight rather than the name most knew him by: Deathwing.

He held the vial out to her, his fingers not touching the crystal, only the silk around it she noted. “Pour this into the lava near that creature. The Flame will take care of the rest. But that Scourge creature will surely be annoyed by this; kill him.”

“Will the lava here not do?” she asked, even as she reached out to take the vial from him.

It was warm in her hand even through her gauntlet. She felt it begin to heat her flesh, filling her with tingles of sensation, like his touch. She flinched, wanting to drop it then, but not daring.

“What is this power?” she breathed in shock as he stepped away from her, looking away from her, deeper into the cavern with his sword raised, a frown on his bearded face now too.

“The creature stands at the very heart of the Shrine of course, you fool, atop our most sacred Altar. It must be used there.” He looked at her over his shoulder, his pale eyes flat and cold for once. “Go now. I will be busy exterminating the last of the vermin here.”

There was something in the way he stood, wary and uneasy for the first time since she had known him that made her think that he would be leaving as soon as she was out of sight.

“This is why you needed mortal help here,” she said, looking at him with hard eyes. “What is this to you?”

He turned stiffly to face her, his gaze still cold. “It is exactly what I said it is. And it will stop the Cult’s plans here forever.”

She met his gaze steadily. Measuring his veiled unease versus his words. To stymie the Cult here would be a great victory. But the Black Dragons were no true friends to any save themselves. This Flame must be dangerous even to dragons. Or perhaps…

“If I release this will I be destroyed too? Is that why you pursue me so ardently? To lull me to a compliant doom?” she said, turning to face him fully, lifting her chin to hold his gaze firmly. Angry, stung.

His expression stayed unchanged for a long moment, his eyes still cold and remote. And then a little of the wicked, taunting gleam finally returned.

“Not bad,” he said, inclining his head to her fractionally. “It seems a betrayal worthy of me, does it not?” His mouth quirked then in a slight grin. “But no, this Fire will do no harm to you, little orc. This I swear.”

“And what is your sworn word worth to me, Black Dragon?” she snapped, baring a fang in a sneer.

“When I enter your body for the first time you will cry out your gladness to me, little orc woman,” he said, his voice low and intent, his gaze hot on hers again, no longer cold or remote at all. “I will slake my hunger in your awakening flesh and when I am done you will beg me for more.”

He didn’t move or approach her as he said these words and yet her breath still caught in her throat. It seemed as if the sheer intensity of his desire reached across the very air between them to heat her flesh this time. Spreading the heat from the vial now clenched tightly in her fist even further down her arm, up into her very body. Her eyes were trapped by his gaze, her breath coming in strangled gasps, her knees trembling beneath her.

“I… I will not,” was all she managed, weak defiance indeed. He smiled then, slow and cruel. White teeth showed in his shadowed face, stark against his dark beard.

“And so this task I have given you will not mean your end. Unless you are weak enough to fall to that cursed necromancer, of course.” He laughed. Short and derisive. “But then you will only have your own failure to blame when Arthas’ soul grinders drag you back under his thumb and not me.”

Her lips parted on a gasp before she could stop herself, angry words ready behind it. His gaze mocked her, daring her to protest again. She bit her lip and turned away toward the path that led to the heart of the Shrine. She tucked the vial into her armor, against her chest. Felt the uncanny heat of it begin to sink deeper into her flesh, awakening it, but could do nothing about it. Not yet. Not here.

This task would damage the Lich King's own plans. She must see it through.

Behind her she heard the scrape of his boot on the ground. Then a loud rustle and a rush of hot air swept past her. Dark shadows arched above her, filling the cavern entrance. She felt the weight of him fill the air behind her while his wings spread wide, brushing against the stone walls as he finished his transformation. She broke into a run.

Running from him. Running toward what could still be her destruction. She didn’t know. She only knew she had to end her service to this dragon quickly – one way or another.

From behind he let out a roar that shook the cavern. Alerting any Cultists who still remained to his presence. Drawing them to him. Almost at once, there was an answering roar from deeper in the cavern and she suddenly remembered the magmawyrm they had witnessed the necromancer summoning earlier. He was drawing that out too. To help ensure she reached the altar safely with her burden. And to protect her? She bent her head and ran on.

The magmawyrm came swiftly through the sooty shadows above, a streak of black and red and bone. Its fire-scarred shape dripping flame in streams behind it.

From behind she heard him roar again, then the nearly deafening scrape of his claws on stone as he launched himself into the air to meet his risen brother in battle. She ran faster, leaping over obstacles, dodging falling fire, her axe clutched tight in her hands. But she didn’t need to use it yet. The mindless bone constructs were racing back toward the entrance where Serinar fought, called to the battle against his invasion by their dark master.

But it left the way clear for her. So she ran on. Air burning in her lungs, throat stinging with the reek of sulfur fumes.

The stone around her rang with echoes from the force of the clash of the two dragons behind her. Living and dead. She dared not turn to look. He roared again. Enraged. Furious. The magmawyrm answered.

She was near her goal now. The path narrowing, crossing the final arch to where the ancient Altar lay. She slowed then, wary of ambush. But the necromancer was still focused on his work. Channeling stolen power into the bones that lay dormant in the pool beyond. Almost as mindlessly intent on the Lich King’s goals as the simple constructs were.

She paused behind the Altar. Dropped her axe to the floor. Bent over, clutching her knees, and gasped for breath until it began to come easier. All the while hot waves of sensation pulsed through her body with the slow pulse of her heart, making her ache, burn. They came from where the vial lay against her breast inside her armor. A spot of clear liquid dripped onto the stone in front of her. Horrified she swiped her hand across her face beneath her helm. The palm of her glove came away damp.

She hadn't sweated since Orgrimmar – since her death.

“No,” she cried. “No!”

Scrambling desperately, she reached inside her armor and found the vial. The rune-marked silk had fallen away completely and even through her glove she felt the painful magical strength of what it contained searing into her flesh. Changing her. Bringing her back to sensation, to a mockery of life.

Before she thought, she hurled the vial away from her. Toward the Altar and the lava beyond. The tiny vial sparkled dully in the red light as it flew through the air. It smashed against the edge of that smooth stone, the tinkling sound almost lost amid the roar of Serinar’s battle, the hiss of lava around her, the necromancer’s mad, frantic chanting.

Instantly, black fire spread everywhere. Engulfing the Altar and the necromancer. Racing across the lava. Sweeping over the walls of the cavern. Flashing toward her where she stood.

She straightened up to meet it, resigned. Had he lied to her? Her hands fell open at her sides; her head tilted back, eyes closed. The Flame of Neltharion engulfed her and she screamed at the shocking, raging, consuming heat of it. But just as quickly it was gone, passing through her and sweeping on to scour the rest of the Shrine.

Trembling, she fell to her knees, falling forward, her hands brushing her axe where it had fallen on the stone before her. She lived! Lived…?

An outraged shriek made her look up. The necromancer’s shield had been stripped away by the black flame. He stood exposed at last, his rotting hands twisted into frustrated claws. “No... NO! What have you done?! So many ancient wyrms wasted... what power could do this?”

The glowing red gaze scanned around him, landing almost instantly on her crouched form. “Foolish errand girl... you will die for interrupting my work!”

Snarling, she gripped her axe and lunged to her feet, leaping toward him even as his lips began to move, his hands to glow with the start of a spell. She wasted no time on runes of her own save those that empowered her strikes. Her first blow took off an arm, sending it spinning away into the lava beyond, stopping the cast. She jumped up on the altar beside him, shouting an ancient orc war-cry, fangs bared. The necromancer shrieked and clawed at her with his remaining hand even as she turned the axe at the top of its arc and brought it down on his head, cleaving him from skull to breast from the force of the blow.

Ichor and blood and brains flew. He staggered, the unholy red glow of his eyes flickering, fading, remaining hand still clawing uselessly at her armor. His body began to crumble around the wound, fraying apart into dust as the fel power that had animated him abandoned him. “This is not the end... death only... strengthens...”

Wrenching her axe up out of his chest, she drew it back and with a howl of rage struck off his sundered head, silencing him forever.

The pieces flew into the lava beyond. And was instantly consumed. The body fell at her feet, a crumpled mass of dried flesh and bone atop the altar.

“One less for you, Arthas.” She grimaced, spat and kicked the rest of the remains into the lava to burn.

She swayed atop the broad altar then, drained, aching, hot. Sank slowly to her knees, gasping for breath through the suddenly searing air. Her axe clattered down onto the glossy stone beside her.

“What have you done to me, dragon?” she cried, staring at the black-tinted flames that still danced atop the lava field beyond. Fire within fire. Magic and power. A seal. Dazed, she waited as she was, on her knees, her hands slack on her thighs, her gaze blank. Why she wasn’t entirely certain. But it seemed as if an eternity passed before firm arms closed around her from behind.

“Well done, my little orc woman,” Serinar said, his breath hot against her ear.

“You live,” she said, eyes closing, body sagging back into his hold. In relief? In despair?

“Of course,” he said, his tone amused. “And now the bones of my blood have been forever spared servitude to this filth. You have served me well, and as such, you shall be awarded appropriately.”

“Then destroy me,” she said, her body trembling, smothering, throbbing. Not deadened at all anymore. The runes in her flesh pulsed angrily now with every beat of her hastened heart; bruised and cold and sick. They ached with the power they held. A power already eating away at her spirit, her will again as if she were freshly woken from death once more. How could she endure that again?

“Oh no, little Death Knight. That mercy I will not grant you,” he said, hands pressing her back against his body firmly, the touch of his mouth against her neck below the rim of her helm searing into her flesh like a brand. “You are mine now.”

~*~

In his true form, he carried her back through the cleansed Shrine to the lair on the mountain outside, held carefully in his claws. There was no sign of the magmawyrm. She wondered if he or the Flame she had unleashed had destroyed it, but her thoughts were spinning too fast for her to wonder for long. On the rocky ledge he transformed back to human form and took her by the hand, leading her, stumbling and unresisting, on into the inner caves again.

In the sandy bier he stripped her first of her bloody, battered armor, then of the clothes beneath to no protest from her. He lead her on again by the hand, now naked and trembling with cold – cold she _should not_ feel, part of her thought with odd despair –, into the inner chamber.

The fire burst to life in the hearth as they entered. His pale eyes glittered as he turned to examine her by that dancing light. Dazed, she made no move to cover herself or to turn away. She’d long ago lost any physical self-consciousness left to her in the icy halls of Acherus when the Lich King’s minions had raised her from death. Naked were Initiates delivered from the Soul Grinders. And naked they earned their way into the rank and the attire of an Acolyte.

She knew her flesh was paler than it had been in life, a sallow green now, stained with darker, livid green marks along her right side and back. From where her blood had pooled in her flesh after she died, a healer had told her once. And then there were the runes; two of red, two of blue, two of green. Graven in her skin at shoulders, hips, waist, front and back; runes imbued with the terrible powers of blood and frost and unholy that made her a Death Knight.

Runes that were eating away at her soul, their power seething through flesh that should not contain their power. Did that mean she was alive or dead? She could no longer tell.

“Fierce and glorious,” was all he said, his gaze intent. He cupped her chin with his hand and brushed his thumb across her lips, stroking against the tusk in one corner hard enough to open her mouth. Or did she let it fall open? He followed his touch with his lips before she could decide, his tongue sweeping within to fill her mouth instantly. Hot and slick and sure.

He tasted of sulfur and iron. Blood and ash. Her mind spun.

A hand cupped the back of her head firmly, holding her still though she made no move to get away. She groaned as his mouth continued to devour hers. Her hands rising finally to grip at his arms, the weave of his heavily embroidered robes rough against her clutching fingertips.

“What have you done to me?” she said when he finally pulled away, her voice harsh, her breath short.

“I have done nothing. But the Flame of the Earthwarder himself has touched you, little Death Knight,” he said quietly, gaze traveling over her bare form possessively. “None remain unchanged by it.”

Had it touched him? Or had he fled its reach? She did not know.

“I am a toy to you,” she said, her heart giving a sick throb in her chest.

His pale eyes gleamed, his fingertips sliding down her neck, tracing her collarbone, lingering in the hollow at the base of her throat that betrayed her racing pulse. “Most definitely.”

“You will break me and cast me aside.” She fisted his robes tight in both hands, struggling not to press herself against him. Shivering as she struggled against the force of a sudden need to touch him.

“Without question,” he said, leaning in until his lips were hot on her throat beneath her ear again. “When I tire of you.” He pulled back slowly to look into her heavy-lidded eyes, his own darkening with hunger as both hands slid down her throat, her chest, to her breasts. “So don’t bore me too quickly.”

He cupped the heavy weight of her breasts in both hands. Pressed the mounds of flesh together as he bent lower, his breath washing hot against her warming, tingling skin.

Sensation spread everywhere from his touch. Awakening nerves sending odd pulses of pleasure or pain throughout her whole body – she could scarce tell the difference.

The feel of his mouth against the cleft of flesh he had built made her toss her head back and groan aloud. Her tail of hair swept across her back, the tickle and scrape of it making her quiver. She felt everything so distinctly in that instant. The sleek warmth of his mouth against her skin. The rough force of his hands lifting, shaping her flesh. The texture of his robe under her grip. The cool, smooth stone of the floor beneath her feet. The chill still in the air of the warming room.

Desperately, she reached for the power of the runes graven in her flesh and cried out as she touched it. Sharp and cold and aching, the pain of them drove through her. Her fel powers denied her by the revival of her ability to feel, by his warmth driving out the Lich King’s coldness.

To touch the runes that lived in her flesh like this now would destroy her. Burn her to ash. Rip her asunder. Shatter her. She _knew_ it. This was not Acherus. Her flesh was no longer numbed. Her soul no longer dulled by its return from death but glowing sharp and fierce and…somehow…impossibly… _alive_ within her again.

He lifted his head and stared down into her face as the truth dawned on her, his lips parted, his gaze hungry and eager as she quivered in fear before the strength of her own power. So harsh. So fierce. So agonizing. Her gaze blurred and she swayed on her feet, body wracked with an anguish that was also nearly ecstasy.

Too strong. Too much. Life. And death. Intertwined impossibly within her mortal form. She could scare endure it. Her mouth opened on a silent scream.

"Ah, you are exquisite in your suffering," he said, crushing her close and ravaging her mouth with his own. His lips were rough, demanding. His tongue relentless. He avoided her fangs with ease. Drew back enough to suck on the base of one tusk for a moment, absorbing the shudders of agony that rippled through her with obvious satisfaction.

So caught up in the sensations warring through her was she that she barely noticed as he swept her up into his arms. Carried her over to the plush woven rug that lay before the hearth.

"Why do I feel you?" she managed to say in her hoarse voice as she finally noticed the rub of the carpet’s nap against her back.

"Because I will it, little orc woman," he said with a dark smile, bending closer. He lay beside her, over her, his robes gone in an instant – by magic or will she could not tell the difference – her hands spreading flat against his bare chest, gripping a hard shoulder tightly. His skin was sleek and warm beneath her touch. His heat soaked into her. Awakening more shivers. More sensation. Awakening the heat of her own flesh… life… the heat of life…

His sharp, pale gaze locked with hers. And she held it, helplessly, despite the heavy drag of eyelids that wanted desperately to close – to shut out the eager greed she saw within him. "Because I will not be denied by deadened flesh and Scourge-born tricks," he said. "You are mine."

His thigh slid between hers. Rubbed against her mound. She rocked herself against him, helpless to stop her body's reaction. It craved his, somehow, when she'd had no such feelings for any other all the long months of her undeath.

"How?" she cried again even as she felt her will crumbling further. She gripped him tighter, her blunt fingernails biting into his false-human flesh. "Why?"

"Because I will it," he repeated, his mouth against hers, his gaze heavy-lidded with dark satisfaction. "Because releasing the Flame into that place of our power marked you as mine forever, little orc woman."

He put his arms under her knees and shoved them up against her chest. She clutched at his shoulders and gasped as his cock brushed against her opening. No longer dry. Not dry at all. But wet and aching, almost as if she were fully alive again. Her hips rolled against his in reaction. Eager. Wanting.

She bit her lip to try to keep back a groan. Failed. His hands caught hers. Drew them down and pinned them beside her head. He looked down into her face and smiled his darkest smile.

"Call my name, woman," he said, his voice low, deadly. "Name me as your lord and master. Only then will I give you what you need." She cried out a denial even as she writhed beneath him. Craving the feel of him against her. His heat soaking into her. Wanting him inside her. Inside where his power had already come, had already changed her.

He held himself still above her, her hands held tight, their fingers entwined. His pale gaze seared her with his will. "Beg me, woman," he demanded, bending closer until his mouth brushed hers. Warm. Taunting. She turned away sharply, crying another denial, and a tusk raked across his cheek. A tiny thread of blood welled on his skin. And she could smell it. The difference. The truth. It was thick and rich and heady with his dragon’s life-force. Not the blood of a human at all; it showed his true strength. She turned toward him again, panting, desperate, and lunged up, licking the trail of blood from his face in one quick swipe.

His eyes narrowed, blazed. His grip tightened. Shuddering she swallowed down the taste of his blood; iron and ash. Closed her eyes. Her throat felt raw from the strain of denial. She could feel the head of his cock against her. Hot and hard. Pressing. Teasing. Taunting. But not moving to fill her aching emptiness. Denying her.

"Call my name," he demanded again, his voice low. With a surge, he rocked her body back further, her shoulders driven hard into the carpet, her body bent and spread to his will.

Her eyes opened. She gazed at him in desperation. And knew there was nothing more she could do to deny him. Her strength was as nothing to his. The runes of ice had failed her; she could not find the will to call on them to freeze him out. And she wanted him. Did want him. So badly. Ached with it. Needed him. Like never before. Not even from her life before did she remember feeling such a depth of need for a man’s touch, a man’s possession.

The Flame... He'd mentioned the Flame of Neltharion. The Flame she'd willingly unleashed upon the bones of his dead to seal them. And, of course, upon herself as well...

Was he right? Had she somehow sealed herself to him with that act?

"S-Serinar..." she whispered his name helplessly, and his eyes flared with triumph.

"Ah, yes, name me your master too, little Death Knight," he said, rocking against her. Slick and tight. Teasing her with the pressure, but not piercing her. Not yet. So close... her body screamed its need at her. Trembling and shifting towards him to no avail. She crossed her ankles behind his back. Arched closer. Desperate for him to fill her. To stop this ache he had cursed her with. But still he denied her. Held himself just away.

It was too much to bear. Too much sensation after so long without.

"Y-you are my Lord Serinar," she said, gasping. “My master… my only master… Serinar.” And his mouth took hers almost before his name faded from her lips, savaging her with his heat. Tongue driving deep, filling her mouth even as he flexed his hips and pierced her below. She writhed and arched beneath him, crying into his mouth at the glory of his entry.

Hot. Hard. Deep. He filled her as if she had been hollow. Heat swept through her, making her blood race, her nerves tingle, her heart pound. He somehow filled her to the edge of her skin and beyond with his very presence.

She threw her head back and screamed aloud. In agony. Ecstasy. Pain. Pleasure. Heat. Life.

 _Serinar._

He took her mouth again, wet and urgent and savage. At once he began to work in her. Driving, sliding. Filling her over and over again. Deep. Deeper. To the limits of her flesh. Even then she writhed. Arched. Lifted herself closer. Opened herself to him. Took him in.

All the while he devoured her scant breath. Smothered her cries. His tongue mimicking what his body did. Filling and filling her with heat and life and the feel of his touch until once again she knew not where she ended and another’s will began.

Deep inside her own mind, the last free fragment of her soul raged helplessly against his dominion. But Rekka could no longer heed it’s cries over the sound of another’s demands.

As it had been with the Lich King before, now there was only the dragon’s voice in her mind.

~end~


End file.
